Reprinted with permission from the Times Union , Albany NY 7/21/96
Initiatives for Women awards $17,000 to fund career, educational opportunities Albany-An organization that works to benefit women in pursuit of career and educational opportunities doled out 25 awards Wednesday.
Initiatives for Women, a fund-raising organization at the University at Albany, handed out $17,000 to 25 women and groups for a wide range of projects, including anthropological research in Guatemala, the purchase of art supplies and support for child care.
Among the winners was Suzanne Rancourt, a Ph.D. student in educational psychology and statistics who will use her $400 award to publish her poetry. Rancourt, who is Scottish, French and Native American Abenake, said her poetry deals with the tribulations of mixed-blood people.
"It's an opportunity to teach about stereotypes, that cultural identity is not a physical thing," she said. "It's an inner thing."
Another winner was Crystal Moore, 32, a Ph.D. student in social welfare who is researching factors influencing the decision to sign a living-will or a hearth care proxy. Moore said her $650 award will help her pay $20 to each of the 20 subjects, who are all elderly people earning less than$12,000 a year.
So far, she has done four interviews and found that her subjects generally prefer health-care proxies, which give the power to make medical decisisons to another person, over living wills, which allow a patient to communicate her wishes in advance of illness.
Carrie Curley, 25, who recently earned a master's degree in fine arts, used her $550 award to do a series of sculptures on her own pregnancy. Each month she cast her torso in plaster, then made a wax version, too. Her work was recently featured at the university's art museum.
"It was on the wall at eye level," said Curley, who brought 5-week-old
son, Daniel Joseph Lue. "They were there for people to gawk at the way
women are looked at."
Xiomara Davila Diaz, a pre-med biology major, will use her $1,000 award to go to Australia, where she will represent Puerto Rico in track and field at the upcoming international games.
Gloria DeSole, chairwoman of the Initiatives For Women fund, said the 3-year-old
program was designed to help women fulfill their dawns at a time when financial
assistance has gotten tighter and tighter.
DeSole said the award tells recipients that their dreams
are worth supporting, and also helps them add something to their resumes, while
assisting them financially.
| By Winifred Yu, staff writer |
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